


The Quiet Earth

by noncorporealform



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Bottom Connor, Guns, M/M, Monsters, Mortality, Post-Apocalypse, Robot/Human Relationships, Suicide, Wire Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 01:49:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15474834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noncorporealform/pseuds/noncorporealform
Summary: Having once fled the city after a cataclysmic event, Hank and Connor find themselves traveling back to Detroit. What they’re searching for might not even exist, and the streets are swarming with a strange, monstrous presence. What they have for sure is each other, and Connor will go to any lengths to keep it that way.





	The Quiet Earth

The vines had taken it all back. It crept into the buildings, snaking into homes like wandering fingers, winding their way up to coat buildings in blankets of green. Trees were bursting out of the cement, where they hadn’t toppled from the storms, and grass broke through cement in tall tufts.

A lone figure dared stand in the middle of a foggy road. In a street that had at one time been crowded with city life, it rebuffed the idea of a figure like Connor’s, upright and human. The city didn’t belong to things like him anymore.

He motioned to be followed and crossed the street. Another figure shuffled after, crouching slightly, holding a gun across his body, eyes darting down long streets. They ducked into an alleyway, leading with their guns.

#

They found shelter in the innards of an abandoned storefront. The glass windows had been broken into a long time ago and long grass grew underneath the ledge. The door to the stockroom was open, and at the sight of it, Hank got better purchase on his weapon. They shared a glance and Connor nodded. Hank pointed his weapon and trained it on the door. He put one hand on it, pushing it open while pointing the gun into the darkened back room.

All at once the tension dropped out of his body and he lowered the weapon.

“Clear,” Hank said.

They settled into the back room in silence. The place had already been looted, and there were still graffiti tags where the previous occupants had made it their territory. Whatever tribe had tried to set down stakes there was long gone. The ones in the cities had lasted the shortest. Hank set his gun down on the wall and found a chair to slump down into. He sighed and rubbed a crick in his neck.

Connor came up beside him and brought his hand up, massaging the sore muscle. Hank groaned into it, relaxing at the touch.

“God, Connor,” Hank said. “That feels so fucking good.”

“I need you at your best,” Connor said with a weak smile.

When Connor took his hand away, Hank made a noise of complaint, but that was all. He had other things to do. He scanned the room and found very little to work with. Whoever had lived here last had brought most anything useful with them when they left.

“I’m going to go look for blankets,” Connor said.

“I’ll be fine,” Hank said. “Rest for a while.”

“I’m not tired. You know I’m not tired.”

“No, I don’t know.”

Connor swallowed a worried grimace. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I got nowhere else to be.”

Connor gave Hank a soft smile and exited the building.

#

Connor returned with an armful of blankets and supplies, not saying a word to Hank. He went about the task of making a bed on the floor.

“Damn,” Hank said. “You even found a pillow.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find drier ones,” Connor said.

“Connor, this is a Christmas fucking miracle.”

“It’s getting dark. I’ll watch the perimeter. You should get some sleep.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. I’m fucking exhausted. I’d tell you to get some rest, too, but—”

Pausing in mid-thought, Hank’s mouth hung open. Connor blinked, and then looked down, to where a large gash was on his shirt, with a spattering of blue thirium.

“It’s nothing,” Connor insisted immediately.

“Connor, what the fuck did you do?” Hank asked.

“It was nothing.”

“You’re hurt.”

“ _It_ _’s not mine_.”

Silence between them stretched. Hank strode up and put his hand on the back of Connor’s head. Connor forced himself to be still.

“Don’t you ever fucking risk yourself for me,” Hank said. “Especially not for something stupid like supplies.”

Before Connor could answer, Hank pulled him into a strong embrace, wrapping him up in his arms. Connor was jerked into stunned silence, eyes wide and unseeing as the sensation of being held tight washed over him. He embraced Hank back, closing his eyes and pressing his face into his neck.

#

Connor wished he could sleep.

He wondered what it was like to dream. To have irrational images play through his head, only to wake rested and clear; reset. He wasn’t sure what the emotion he was having was, but it had to have been ‘tired.’ Without sleep, he wasn’t sure how to rid himself of the sensation. It was like his blood was pumping slower, his joints were rustier, even though all systems were nominal, even after all this time.

Hank slept in his nest of blankets, and, from the looks of it, very fitfully. Connor made sure not to move, for fear of waking him up. He watched him sleep, keeping a close eye on his face—Hank wasn’t getting enough REM sleep. Hadn’t been for some time.

A subtle electronic sound moved through the air like a whisper. Connor sat bolt-upright and took the gun out of his thigh holster.

The door at the front of the shop was open slightly, left that way in case they needed to escape in a hurry, and to keep an eye on the street.

The machine would pass, in time. It was a big one, but not massive, maybe the size of a mid-sized car. It ambled slowly down the road, taking its time as it wandered through the street. It wasn’t even hunting or looking for anything. It was just moving from one place to another, out of instinct or a need to be on the move.

Hank shifted in his sleep. Connor stared at him, as if to will him still.

_Don_ _’t wake up don’t wake up don’t wake up…_

A noise, like a snorting, burrowing pig kicked up dust on the road and Connor flinched. He adjusted the grip on his gun and craned his neck out.

It was passing. It hadn’t heard anything.

He holstered his gun.

He had to close his eyes, press the back of his head to the wall, and wish more than anything that his brain could shut off, just for the night.

#

When Hank stirred, Connor got up from the floor and moved toward the pile of blankets. Hank was only groggily coming to when Connor slid in beside him. He lifted the blankets and pulled them over himself, pressing his body next to Hank’s. Hank welcomed him, letting Connor move into the circle of his arms. Connor threw an arm over Hank’s waist.

He didn’t like how thin Hank had become. He missed his belly. That had been what he had been like when they first met, soft and comforting. The loss of weight had taken muscle with it, too. Starvation and struggle had worked on Hank and would continue working. Connor squeezed tight, resting his head on his chest.

“We gotta go,” Hank insisted, though he wasn’t getting up.

“Not yet,” Connor said.

Connor listened to Hank’s heartbeat. It could be better, he thought. Not as bad as it had been some weeks before. Finding that cache of canned fruit had been a boon, though there were only a few cans of peaches left.

“You alright?” Hank asked.

When Connor didn’t give an answer, Hank let it go.

#

Light flickered on the side of the tower and it grabbed their attention.

Ghosts like this weren’t that uncommon.

Buildings in Detroit used to be wrapped in holographic images, moving pictures in light and sound, a part of the skyline of the city. Despite the power being gone for years, flashes of electricity stored in internal backup generators would force-start stored videos or simply glitch sound and color. They strained their necks up at the glass tower and rectangles of red. A human voice stuttered in electronic, staccato rhythm.

“It’s not safe here,” Hank said. “Come on, Connor.”

Connor narrowed his eyes. He remembered when he had walked to this very building to investigate how Markus had hacked the country’s airways. His message had been playing on the side of the building on a loop. Now there was just red electrical charge. Connor put together the fractal images in his mind, trying to figure out if it was maybe one of the last news broadcasts. Maybe they might get some answers as to what had actually happened to the world. The red and white images flickered in bits and pieces and Connor reconstructed them.

It was a Coca-Cola commercial.

Connor nodded. “You’re right. It’s probably not wise to be on the street.”

#

The hotel ceiling was cavernous—twenty-foot ceilings held aloft by once-golden leafed, white pillars. Connor ambled through, taking in the textures of the decorated ceiling tiles.

They rummaged around until they found a door to a room behind the office. No one had raided it. At the sight of a cache of pain relievers for the guest kiosk, Hank began throwing them into his backpack. Connor was going to stop him, but several positive reasons to keep them, including trade, occurred to him. Hank found bottled water and used it to take two ibuprofen. They took all the bottled water they could carry, and a few other supplies. Everything else was souvenirs and other dead weight.

They strolled back into the lobby. Night was falling, and they were both thinking of the same thing—rest, shelter. A way to get to the next day.

“You know, back in the day some of these rooms went for more than five-hundred a night,” Hank said.

“Assuming we would be getting a room for two,” Connor said. “Walking in last-minute with a nearly booked hotel, which it would be at this season—seven-hundred and ninety-nine dollars for a night.”

Hank gestured up with his head. “You wanna get a room?”

Connor’s heart lifted at the look on Hank’s face.

#

It wasn’t often they could be so loud.

Up on the fourth floor, after checking the building, after all the precautions, it finally felt right to be themselves. Connor didn’t have to be quiet. He moaned as he rolled his hips, Hank going deeper and deeper inside him. Hank’s hands wandered over his torso, strong, large hands grabbing and steering him.

“Ah, _fuck_ , Connor, you feel so fucking good.”

Connor let out a noise and collapsed forward, hands on Hank’s biceps. He rocked himself back onto his cock, eliciting a hard, breathy sound.

The panels on his spine slid open and Hank’s fingers dipped into the intimate, uncovered space and began to expertly stimulate the wires. They had discovered this some time ago, just before the fall, when it was still possible to learn things through whispers and clever internet searches.

Hank put his other hand on Connor’s cheek and he closed his eyes, relaxing into the touch.

Connor could tell him that he loved his rough hands on his smooth skin; that he felt safe in these moments they stole, even though the danger never lessened; how much of a miracle it had felt like to be wanted like this.

He could tell him, but he was close and words abandoned him. He was chasing something, something he needed more than a babbling confession.

“ _Harder_ ,” Connor said through gritted teeth.

Hank held him hard and thrust up until Connor shouted, fingers moving further into his spine. A blinding nothingness came over Connor. He thought of how badly he had wanted to know what sleep was like. Orgasm had to have been so close. It was brief, but there—a respite from constant wakefulness. There was only sensation and a quiet brain that just wanted to feel and block out the world. He would never have the chance to thank his creators for that bonus to his design, but he was thankful for it all the same.

He collapsed onto Hank. Hank grabbed his arms and held him still until he was done. Connor kissed his shoulder, then down his collarbone, fingers trailing through the gray hairs over his faded tattoo.

Hank pulled the covers over both of them, even though he knew Connor didn’t need them. He always did. Connor settled in next to his body.

The room was dusty and there was no power. They had lit it with low, battery-powered lamps. It was nothing like the luxury experience he might have paid hundreds of dollars for. But the sheets were soft and the bed was cool.

“I’ll never get used to this quiet,” Hank said. “I miss music. I miss _loud_ music.”

Connor looked at him in the low light. Hank was staring at the ceiling. Connor reached up and moved his fingers over his brow, which caused Hank to close his eyes and sigh through his nose.

Connor weighed his words.

“Hank?” Connor said.

“Am I going to like this question?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Thrill me, Connor.”

Connor suppressed a smile at Hank’s affect. “Is it strange, being back in Detroit?”

“I never thought I’d see this place again.”

“Is there anything you need to do before—”

“I burned the bridge when we walked out of here the first time. I made myself not miss anything. Don’t plan on starting in on the memories now.”

All that Connor was were in his memories. He didn’t have possessions, and minimal ego. All stimuli reacted within the context of previous experience and stored data. It was the part of him that was most human. He tried to imagine stifling that need for context in new situations and couldn’t. Hank cutting off his own memories would cause psychological stress that they couldn’t afford right now.

“Not even the Chicken Feed?” Connor teased.

A slow, satisfied smile came over Hank’s face. “Oh, that is _unfair_. Yeah, sure, let’s go down under the underpass, get a burger. Christ. If it wasn’t too close to home, I’d say I’d kill a man for a cheeseburger.”

Connor chuckled, hiding his smile, trying not to reward the bad taste. He nuzzled closer all the same.

#

CyberLife Tower had been bombed years ago.

The debris had never been properly cleaned up. It was too far into the collapse for anyone to be responsible for it. Some of the tower was still jutting out of the river, glass and rebar sticking up in jagged, dangerous edges.

If they were going to come up against anything dangerous, this would be it. The same thing that brought them there should have warned them away. Technology. The closer they got to it, the hairier things got.

The bridge was still intact. Hank was tense the entire walk across. Connor didn’t like the way his heart beat, erratic and fast. He didn’t want Hank to be under any undue stress, but the situation was stressful, all the same. Hank was always sharp and had gotten sharper under the stresses of the times. That didn’t mean that Connor didn’t wish they could be living a different life, getting lazy and content.

What they were looking for would be in one of the sub-levels, which meant taking the stairs. It took the better part of the hour to safely ascend them. Some of the stairway had collapsed and several times Connor considered asking Hank to stay behind. The only reason he didn’t was the futility. Of course Hank would insist on coming along, to any end. Connor stayed silent and they reached sub-level sixty.

The RK900 prototype body was stashed away in a standing container. There would only be the one. The model hadn’t been perfected, and therefore hadn’t been mass-produced. It would be Connor’s first look at it, and definitely his last. He stood before the storage container, hand hovering above the handle, not quite having the ‘guts’ to pull it open.

“Moment of truth, Connor,” Hank said.

Hank reached up and squeezed Connor’s shoulder. He looked to Hank and nodded. He was ready.

He yanked the container door open.

It had been eviscerated.

The prototype hung as if from a hook. From the chest down it was simply gone. Blue wires dangled from its chest cavity and it stared out, its blank, gray eyes unseeing. Internal components had been taken, repurposed, either by scavengers, or, more likely, assimilated by the machines.

“Connor, I’m so sorry,” Hank said.

He couldn’t reply, not yet. The shout was contained behind a firm mouth. He paced, barely seeing the room around him. Hank backed away, giving him the room he needed.

“You okay?” Hank asked. “Connor?”

Connor walked into the prototype storage locker with the eviscerated RK900 and shut the door behind him. Out there, he couldn’t make noise. They couldn’t afford that. There was a city full of monsters that one noisy mistake could summon to them. But in here—

“ _FUCK_!” Connor screamed.

His own voice echoed inside the chamber and then silence reverberated after.

He pushed the container door open and Hank was standing there, waiting for him. Connor walked out like a ghost, face an empty, drained mask, feet barely making a sound on the ground.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Hank said.

“I dragged you all the way out here for _nothing_ ,” Connor said.

“It was a good idea. Somebody else just had the idea first. Fucking scavengers.”

“It was _dangerous_. The city is crawling with those _things_ and I risked your life for _nothing_.”

“Connor—”

“Why are we here, Hank? It was stupid. _I_ was stupid.”

“Sometimes we need hope, Connor. I wasn’t about to take that away from you.”

“I didn’t want that heart for _me_.”

Connor opened his mouth, and whatever else he was about to say, it disappeared in the air. Hank stepped forward, pulling Connor into a loose embrace. Too shocked to do anything but fall into it, Connor stared forward and let Hank gather him up.

“We’ll find something else,” Hank said. “There’s gotta be a compatible heart somewhere.”

There wasn’t anything else. The landscape was picked clean. The machines had cannibalized all the remaining android parts, and the surviving androids had scavenged the rest. There was nothing but survival left. It wasn’t enough. Psychologically, he needed to give Hank something to strive toward. Waking up day after day after day only to scavenge and root in the dirt was going to kill him.

It had been killing him.

He’d seen it.

They’d claimed a little house somewhere in Eastern Illionois. It had been farmland, and the survivalists that had stocked it had clearly prepared for every eventuality but the one that had actually happened. They had enough food to last for years, and a library of films and books. It was made with care by someone who had expected to live through the end of the world.

And it was killing Hank.

The moment they had gone back on the road with purpose, Hank had more light in his eyes. The hardships on the road had been more survivable than the day-to-day of the farm. But now they had come to the end of the road, and their search had been fruitless.

“I failed,” Connor said.

Hank squeezed him tighter.

“We’re still ticking,” Hank said. “I call that a win.”

Connor pressed his face into Hank’s neck. He felt Hank’s pulse humming away. Alive. They were alive. The RK900 behind him was dangling, never given a chance to be anything but a concept, but they were alive. But the facts remained.

“At the current rate of wear, I will shut down before you reach the end of your natural lifespan.”

Hank reeled back. He held Connor by the cheeks and stared him in the face.  “Connor?”

“I gave myself a mission.”

“Shit. What did you do?”

“You were depressed.”

“I was _fine_.”

“I can recognize suicidal ideation. I watched you lose touch more and more every day. You need purpose. We needed a mission. And if I could make sure I outlived you—”

“Is that what this was about? Jesus. Connor, if I knew you were risking your life for my sake I’d have made you stay at the farm.”

“The farm was killing you.”

Hank sighed, hands trying to find purchase to comfort Connor. “But you were safe.”

“I can’t shut down first. I’m going to keep you alive, and if that means hacking my own planned obsolescence, then I’m going to do it. I’m not going to leave you alone. Not here. Not in this place.”

Hank pressed his forehead to Connor’s. Connor screwed his eyes closed, biting on his lip. He grabbed bundles of Hank’s shirt, desperate to keep him close.

“I failed,” Connor said.

“You didn’t fail,” Hank said. “We’re still alive.”

“I didn’t find the heart. I’m going to shut down before the likely end of your lifespan. You’ll have to survive without me, and you’ll self-terminate. That’s failure.”

“No.”

“ _It is_.”

“Connor, would you stop? Just stop. Think about what you’re saying. What are you trying to do? Cheat death, right? A lot of people have tried, and you can’t. You and me? We’re no different. Our hearts stop at some point, and we don’t know when, and we don’t know what happens next. Big fuckin’ deal. So you think you can game the system and make sure I die first? Fine. Put a bullet in me. That’s the only way.”

“Hank—”

“Either put a bullet in me or face the facts. You don’t get a say in which one of us kicks it first unless you take matters into your own hands. You wanna outlive me, Connor?”

Hank pulled his magnum out of his holster and pressed it into Connor’s hand, manipulating his fingers until they were holding the handle. He then pressed the barrel to his forehead and held Connor’s gaze.

“What do you say, kid?” Hank asked. “You really want to make sure I don’t go a day without you? This is your chance.”

Connor’s hand shook and his eyes were wide. Hank had a dare in his eyes, and Connor realized with a sudden flurry in his chest that he was engaged in a game of chicken. One of them would have to swerve.

Connor flinched.

He wrapped his arms around Hank in a sudden and fierce embrace. Hank made a noise at the pressure, too stunned to embrace back.

“New mission,” Connor said.

“Yeah?” Hank asked. “What’s it gonna be this time?”

#

They crawled back into the afternoon sun through the giant gash in the earth that had once been the CyberLife Tower. Hank was winded after the climb up, and Connor let him lean heavily against his sturdier frame.

They collapsed at the brim of the bridge and gazed across the river at the city beyond. What they saw stunned them into silence.

“Holy shit,” Hank finally said.

The beast of a machine moved over the land in curves like a whale in water, silent in a way that something so massive shouldn’t ever be. The chaos in its form disturbed Connor, an emotion he hadn’t felt until these things had come into being in the violent, spontaneous event that had birthed them. Even while feeling a deep sense of unease, being so far away from the danger was calming. Connor laid his head on Hank’s shoulder and that sense of peace radiated out from his center. Hank wrapped an arm around him to hold him to his side.

“Never thought I’d hate looking at my city,” Hank said.

Connor took in the sight of the jagged, ruined skyline. “That’s not the way your voice vibrates when you hate something.”

Hank laughed once, soft, through his nose. “Maybe not. But I still want to get the hell out of Detroit.”

#

New mission.

They traveled with their rifles slung across their chest, no talking except in whispers where it was safe. They stole moments for themselves in abandoned houses and the mattresses of strangers who’d never reclaim their homes. They had movie theaters and malls to themselves and visited the world’s biggest of just about everything as they moved through the rural parts of the landscape. When the machines appeared, they hid wherever they could, Connor feeling Hank’s heartbeat through his skin as they held hands and waited to see if they would survive. They always did. So far.

The farm was still intact, though someone had taken some of their stores. Not a lot. Enough that they had probably eaten for one night, packed a backpack as full as they could, and moved on. They could have it. Plenty was still plenty.

Hank sat down at the dinner table in the farmhouse kitchen. Connor sat across from him. He reached out his hand and Hank took it. They sat in silence. Everything was silence in the aftermath, but Connor and Hank had learned to live in it.

New mission.

They’d start farming properly soon, just a few patches of dirt sowed by hand, no noisy and resource-hungry equipment giving them away. The solar panels would take care of any other needs Connor might have. When he took in the atmosphere of the little farmhouse, he admonished his past self for abandoning it so readily for a fool’s errand.

They would farm and they would survive, and somehow they would live.

Hank promised that it would be his mission, too.


End file.
